Workhouses of Wales and the Welsh Borders

By Peter Higginbotham

A survey in 1776 recorded almost 2,000 parish workhouses operating in England, while the number in Wales was just nineteen. The New Poor Law of 1834 proved equally unattractive in much of Wales – some parts of the country resisted providing a workhouse until the 1870s, with Rhayader in Radnorshire being the last area in the whole of England and Wales to do so.
Our image of these institutions has often been coloured by the work of authors such as Charles Dickens, but what was the reality? Where exactly were these workhouses located – and what happened to them? 

People are often surprised to discover that a familiar building was once a workhouse. Revealing locations steeped in social history, Workhouses of Wales and the Welsh Borders is a comprehensive and copiously illustrated guide to the workhouses that were set up across Wales and the border counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. It provides an insight into the contemporary attitudes towards such institutions as well as their construction and administration, what life was like for the inmates, and where to find their records today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9780750999786

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

In a roundabout way, the workhouse owes its existence to Henry VIII, whose dissolution of England’s religious houses from 1536 onwards removed a major source of support for the nation’s poor. Over the following decades, a variety of legislative measures were tried that gradually established the principle that the relief of the poor should come from the public purse rather than through charitable endeavours.

The 1552 Act for Provision and Relief of the Poor required that ‘collectors of alms’ be appointed in each parish, with every parishioner giving whatever their ‘charitable devotion’ suggested.1 When the funds raised by such voluntary donations proved inadequate, compulsory contributions were instituted by the Vagabonds Act of 1572, which introduced a local property tax, the poor rate, administered by parish collectors and overseers. The money raised was to be used to relieve ‘aged, poor, impotent, and decayed persons’.2

In 1576, the Act for Setting the Poor on Work stated a principle that was to influence the administration of poor relief for centuries to come – that the able-bodied were not to have ‘any just excuse in saying that they cannot get service or work and be then without means of livelihood’.3 To achieve this, every town was enjoined to provide ‘a stock of wool, hemp, flax, or other stuff by taxation of all; so that every poor and needy person, old or young, able to work and standing in need of relief, shall not fear want of work, go abroad begging, or committing pilfering, or living in idleness.’

Further measures were included in the 1597 Act for the Relief of the Poor. The Act, which brought together elements of earlier legislation, required parishes to appoint Overseers of the Poor, whose responsibility was to collect and distribute the poor rate, to find work for the able-bodied, and to set up ‘houses of dwelling’ for those incapable of supporting themselves.4 In the same year, the Hospitals for the Poor Act encouraged the founding of hospitals or ‘abiding and working houses’ for the poor. Accommodation for those in need through no fault of their own – often referred to as the ‘impotent’ or ‘deserving’ poor – coupled with premises and work for the able-bodied, formed the basis of what would eventually evolve into the workhouse.5

THE 1601 POOR RELIEF ACT

In 1601, another Act for the Relief of the Poor, essentially a slight refinement of its 1597 predecessor, formed the basis of the what became known as the Old Poor Law.6 The main elements of the 1601 Act were: the parish being the administrative unit responsible for poor relief, with its Overseers collecting poor rates and allocating relief; the provision of materials to provide work for the able-bodied poor, those refusing to work liable to be placed in a House of Correction;7 the relief of the impotent poor, including the provision of ‘houses of dwelling’; and the setting to work and apprenticeship of pauper children.

The assistance given to the poor through the parish poor rates was predominantly dispensed as ‘out-relief’ – what might now be referred to as hand-outs. Out-relief could be given as a cash payment, either for one-off specific purposes, such as the purchase of clothing or shoes, or as a regular weekly pension. Alternatively, it could be dispensed in kind, most commonly in the form of bread or flour.

At the heart of all this activity was the parish’s governing body, the vestry, which comprised the priest, churchwardens, and other respected householders of the parish.

THE STATUS OF WALES

Following the Acts of Union (1536–43), Wales was administered under the same laws as England. Thus, the Poor Law Acts of 1597 and 1601 and successive Poor Law legislation applied to Wales as well as England.

One Welsh county, the border county of Monmouthshire, had a peculiar status. After its name was omitted from the second Act of Union in 1543, the notion arose that it was a part of England rather than Wales. As a result, Monmouthshire was frequently placed in the English section of directories, reports and other publications, while statutes and other legal documents often used the phrase ‘Wales and Monmouthshire’ to deal with the ambiguity. The situation was only fully resolved by the Local Government Act of 1972, which formally placed the county in Wales.

EARLY WORKHOUSES

Although the 1601 Act talked about ‘work’ and ‘houses’, it made no mention of the word ‘workhouse’ – a term that seems to have come into general use in the 1620s. These early workhouses were often non-residential establishments, more like workshops in character. Work, usually related to the production of textiles, was provided for the willing able-bodied, either on a daily basis on the premises, or taken away to be done in their own homes.

At Shrewsbury, as early as 1604, the town corporation made plans to set the poor to work in the old castle, but the scheme appears not to have come to fruition. In 1627, however, it was ordered that ‘the Jersey house be made a work-house’, with ‘Jersey cloth’ being manufactured there.8 At around the same time, similar initiatives were taking place across the country in towns such as Reading, Taunton, Sheffield, Halifax, Leeds, Exeter, Plymouth and Cambridge.9 Later in the century, workhouses were established at Ludlow (1676), Nantwich (1677) and Macclesfield (1698).

SETTLEMENT AND REMOVAL

The 1662 Settlement and Removal Act decreed that a parish was required to give poor relief only to those who were legally established or ‘settled’ there.10 Unless they were able to rent a property for £10 a year or more, any new arrivals deemed ‘likely to be chargeable’ to the poor rates could be forcibly removed back to their own parish.

A child’s settlement at birth was taken to be the same as that of its father. At marriage, a woman took on the same settlement as her husband. Illegitimate children were granted settlement in the place where they were born and thus became the responsibility of that parish. This sometimes led parish Overseers to try and get rid of an unmarried pregnant woman before her child was born; for example, by forcibly transporting her to another parish just before the birth, or by paying a man from another parish to marry her.

Over the years, the settlement laws were much amended. From 1691, settlement could be obtained by serving an apprenticeship in a new parish or by a year’s continuous employment there. Although gradually diluted, the settlement laws governed the administration of poor relief for almost three centuries, their final remnants only being repealed in 1948.

LOCAL ACT ADMINISTRATIONS

The administrative framework laid down in 1601 did not suit everyone. This was particularly the case in towns that contained a number of small parishes. In 1696, Bristol’s eighteen parishes obtained a Local Act of Parliament to create the Bristol Incorporation of the Poor. The Act enabled the incorporation to manage poor relief across the whole city, including the appointment of paid officers and the setting up of workhouses. By 1712, more than a dozen other towns had followed Bristol’s example and formed civic incorporations under Local Acts. This route was taken by Hereford in 1698, Gloucester in 1702, and Chester in 1761. The workhouses set up by Local Act incorporations were usually styled ‘Houses of Industry’ in the expectation, often unrealised, that the labour of the inmates would make a substantial contribution to the running costs of the establishments.

Despite the considerable legal expense involved in obtaining a Local Act, parishes usually judged that the benefits would justify the cost. Things did not always turn out that way, however. Within five years of Gloucester obtaining its Local Act, the city’s parishes had reverted to administering poor relief individually. Eventually, in 1764, the city obtained a second Local Act, which was successfully put into ongoing operation.

THE WORKHOUSE TEST ACT

By the start of the eighteenth century, parishes were increasingly providing residential accommodation for their poor. In most cases, these establishments – generally referred to as poorhouses – housed only the elderly and infirm, who received little or no supervision. However, the idea of the residential workhouse was gaining ground, where paupers were expected to work in return for their accommodation and maintenance. As well as the labour element, workhouses typically had a resident governor, strict rules regulating the inmates’ conduct, and a plain diet. However, use of the terms ‘poorhouse’ and ‘workhouse’ was not always consistent and the two words could be used almost interchangeably, as at Mydroilyn in Cardiganshire, where the poorhouse inmates were to be ‘properly employed’.11 The character of an establishment could also change over time, as happened in 1810 at Mitcheldean in Gloucestershire, when the existing workhouse was turned over for use as a poorhouse.12

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An early 1900s view of St Peter’s Hospital, Bristol – originally the city’s ‘Mint’ workhouse, established in 1698.

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The preamble to Tewksbury’s 1792 Local Act, promoting a new workhouse to be administered by an incorporated board of ‘guardians of the poor’.

A major impetus to the use of parish workhouses came from the 1723 Workhouse Test Act, also known as Knatchbull’s Act.13 The Act gave a legal framework for workhouses to be set up by parishes either singly, or in combination with a neighbour. Premises could be hired or purchased for the purpose, and workhouse operation could be contracted out – a system known as ‘farming’ the poor. The Act also provided for the use of the workhouse ‘test’ – that the prospect of the workhouse should act as a deterrent and that poor relief could be restricted to those who were prepared to accept its regime. Parishes often hoped that offering only the workhouse to some or all of its relief applicants would reduce the number of claimants and so reduce the cost of the poor rates. If it did not fulfil these expectations, the workhouse could be closed and a return made to solely using out-relief.

Workhouses sometimes operated in existing premises that might be owned by the parish or be rented for the purpose, and their location could change over time. If a parish felt confident about the benefits of a workhouse, it might purchase or erect a building for the purpose. Parishes often switched to and fro between running the workhouse themselves and appointing a contractor. Contractor-run workhouses were normally located within the parish that was financing them, although other arrangements were possible. From 1748 onwards, Thomas Hazlehurst’s establishment, based in Wellington, also received paupers from Newport, Little Wenlock, Wrockwardine and Berrington. In 1774, the Bromyard township of Winslow began using privately run workhouses 15 miles away in Hereford.14 Up until 1795, Knighton employed a contractor in Ludlow.15 In 1832, the Cheshire parish of Bostock was sending paupers to a workhouse in Middlewich.16

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The workhouse at Sutton Lane Ends, near Macclesfield, erected in 1785.

Although the 1723 Act was permissive, many parishes made use of its provisions and it led to a surge in workhouse provision. Parishes establishing workhouses in the first ten years following the passing of the Act included: Cheltenham, Chester (St John the Baptist and St Mary’s on the Hill), Cirencester, Congleton, Ellesmere, Knutsford, Ledbury, Lymm, Much Wenlock, Shifnal, Stockport, Stroud and Tarporley. One of the earliest workhouses in Wales was opened at Hawarden in 1736.

THE PARISH WORKHOUSE REGIME

Parish workhouses varied in matters such as the inmates’ diet and the tasks given to those able to work. A typical establishment was that at Bishop’s Castle, in Shropshire, which in 1797 featured in a pioneering national survey of the poor by Sir Frederic Eden:

The contractor has £105 a year to feed and clothe [the inmates] and defray all other expenses, except appeals. 14 paupers, chiefly old, infirm and insane, are in the house. Those who can work are employed in spinning lint or other common work, according to their age and abilities. Table of diet in the Workhouse: Breakfast–every day, broth, or milk and water gruel. Dinner–Sunday, Wednesday, hot meat and vegetables; other days, cold meat and vegetables. Supper–every day, same as at breakfast. No bread is allowed at dinner. Sometimes potatoes and milk are served for supper. The matron always gives each person a little bread and cheese after breakfast. The house is kept pretty clean: of 10 beds 6 are stuffed with feathers and 4 with chaff. Both beds and bedclothes are very old.17

It is clear from reports such as this that bed-sharing was the norm in workhouses of the period.

Parish workhouses often had extensive rules covering matters such as the daily routine, prohibitions on smoking or the use of distilled liquors, and punishments for behaviour such as swearing, lying, malingering or disobedience. Despite the ban on strong drink, parish workhouses frequently had their own brewhouse and served ‘small’ or weak beer to their inmates, including children – it was often healthier than the local water supply.

Conditions in parish workhouses could vary widely, though, and some were clearly grim. In 1835, a workhouse at Clifton, in Bristol, was ‘filthy in the extreme, the appearance of the inmates dirty and wretched’.18 In contrast, at nearby Westbury-on-Trym, inmates were provided with a good building, good food and kind treatment – one writer suggesting that ‘even today it would be unlikely for an old person in a geriatric ward to receive such good treatment’.19 Despite the potential for making the workhouse a deterrent institution, this was far from always being the case.

GILBERT’S ACT

In 1782, MP Thomas Gilbert successfully promoted his Act for the Better Relief and Employment of the Poor.20 Gilbert viewed existing parish workhouses as ‘dens of horror’.21 The aim of his Act was to:

have the poor well accommodated and treated with great humanity, but kept under a strict conformity to the rules and orders of the house; to encourage good behaviour, sobriety and industry, by proper rewards, and to find suitable and proper employment, under prudent and careful inspection, for all who are able to work.22

Under the Act, whose adoption was voluntary, the use of workhouses was to be restricted to the old, the sick and infirm, and orphan children, while able-bodied paupers were to be found employment near their own homes, with landowners, farmers and other employers receiving allowances from the poor rates to bring wages up to subsistence levels. Refusal to do such work would result in being placed in a House of Correction. The Act allowed parishes to form groups or ‘unions’ and operate a joint workhouse. The administration of Gilbert Unions was through a board of guardians, elected by the ratepayers of each member parish, and supervised by a Visitor. The appointment of the Guardians and Visitor, the location of workhouses, and the appointment of a governor or contractor all required the approval of local magistrates.

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Llantrisant’s former workhouse premises on Swan Street.

Well over 100 Gilbert administrations were eventually established, most of which were Gilbert Unions, some comprising more than forty parishes. Motives for adopting the Act varied. Apart from any humanitarian considerations regarding the treatment of the poor, having a share in a large Gilbert Union workhouse could prove financially attractive for a parish compared to running its own institution. In some places, magistrates seem to have actively endorsed use of the Act, perhaps reflecting the greater control it bestowed on them in relation to the local operation of poor relief.23

Gilbert’s Act proved particularly popular in Gloucestershire, where fifteen individual parishes eventually adopted its provisions.24 No Gilbert administrations seem to have been formed in Cheshire, Herefordshire or Shropshire, and apparently just two in Wales, at Bangor and Swansea, although the Glamorgan parish of Llantrisant was clearly motivated by the Act despite not formally adopting it.

RURAL INCORPORATIONS

In the second half of the eighteenth century, a series of Local Act incorporations were formed in rural East Anglia. Fifteen were eventually established, most being based on traditional county sub-divisions known as hundreds. In 1784, Shrewsbury obtained a Local Act and its incorporation opened a large House of Industry in a building originally erected as a branch of London’s Foundling Hospital. Seven years later, apparently stimulated by Shrewsbury’s activities, five rural incorporations were formed in just two years in north-west Shropshire and neighbouring Montgomeryshire. The five – Atcham, Ellesmere, Oswestry, Whitchurch, and Montgomery and Pool – all closely followed Shrewsbury’s model of operation and the style of its workhouse. The Montgomery and Pool Incorporation was run by a board of twenty-one directors, appointed by its constituent parishes. The incorporation spent £12,000 on erecting a House of Industry at Forden for up to 500 inmates, who were occupied in spinning, weaving, tailoring and shoemaking.

OUT-RELIEF VERSUS THE WORKHOUSE

A parliamentary survey published in 1777 revealed that there were almost 2,000 workhouses in operation in England, with around one in seven parishes operating an establishment. In total, almost 90,000 workhouse places were provided, enough to accommodate about 1.1 per cent of the population. It was rather a different picture in Wales (Monmouthshire included), however, where a mere nineteen workhouses were in use, covering about one in sixty parishes and able to house about 0.1 per cent of the population.25 Eleven of these workhouses were in Pembrokeshire. In 1803, a total of 3,755 parishes in England were making use of (though not necessarily themselves operating) workhouses, while the figure for Wales was then seventy.26

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The Foundling Hospital building was adopted as the Shrewsbury Incorporation’s House of Industry and became a model for five further establishments in the region.

Despite the growing use of the workhouse, out-relief was the dominant means for supporting the poor on both sides of the border – one in seven English parishes running a workhouse meant that six in seven were not running one. In 1802–03, across England and Wales, 956,248 paupers were relieved outside the workhouse at a cost of just over £3 million. At the same date, 83,468 paupers were maintained in workhouses, at cost of about £1 million.27

As the figures indicate, workhouses played very little part in parish poor relief in Wales, where out-relief was always the preferred method of providing for the poor. The main means of support were by the payment of rents out of the poor rates, by the exemption of cottages from rate assessments, by regular periodic relief, by casual or occasional assistance in money or kind, and in some parishes by establishing poorhouses where poor individuals or families could live rent-free but without any supervision.28

The readiness with which out-relief was provided could vary over time, however, depending on factors such as the prevailing economic conditions in the area. In the 1820s, able-bodied applicants in Shrewsbury first had to work on the town’s streets. In lean times, some Shropshire coalfield parishes cut down on the numbers they supported with out-relief.29

THE OLD POOR LAW IN CRISIS

The early nineteenth century saw a time of increasing financial problems for the poor relief system. The national cost of poor relief rose enormously – from around £2 million in 1784 to a peak of £7.87 million in 1818.30 The majority of that expenditure was on out-relief.

In many parts of the country, the supplementing of labourers’ wages from the poor rate as advocated by Gilbert’s Act had become common. The practice had become formalized in allowance systems such as that introduced in 1795 at Speenhamland in West Berkshire, which linked wage supplements to the price of bread and size of family. The Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) also contributed to an increase in the number of relief claimants, while the introduction of the Corn Laws in 1815 led to higher food prices and the cost of feeding the poor.

A few places, however, managed to buck the national trend of rising poor rates. In the early 1820s, the Nottinghamshire parish of Southwell virtually abolished out-relief and claimants were instead offered only the workhouse. The workhouse was strictly and economically run, with males and females segregated, work required of the inmates and a restricted diet imposed. As a result, the parish’s poor relief expenditure fell from £1,884 in 1821–22 to £811 the following year. In 1824, a much larger workhouse run on similar lines was opened nearby by the Thurgarton Incorporation, again achieving significant financial savings.31

Elsewhere in the country, growing discontent among the labouring classes reached a climax in the autumn of 1830 with the so-called ‘Swing’ riots. Beginning in Kent and rapidly spreading across Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex and Hampshire, agricultural labourers engaged in increasingly violent protests against low wages, expensive food and the growing mechanization of farms. Attacks on workhouses featured among their activities.

A Royal Commission, appointed in 1832 to review the operation of the Poor Laws, highlighted the deficiencies of poor relief administration in many parishes. The Commission’s report, published in 1834, characterized the typical parish workhouse as containing:

a dozen or more neglected children, twenty or thirty able-bodied adults of both sexes and probably an equal number of aged and impotent persons who are proper objects of relief. Among these the mothers of bastard children and prostitutes live without shame, and associate freely with the youth, who also have the example and conversation of the inmates of the county gaol, the poacher, the vagrant, the decayed beggar, and other characters of the worst description. To these may be added a solitary blind person, one or two idiots, and not infrequently are heard, from among the rest, the incessant ravings of some neglected lunatic.32

A subsequent report on the Llantrisant workhouse was no better, describing it as a ‘large workhouse … but it is ill-managed, the children are half naked and dirty, while the diet was as the Overseer admitted better than that of most of the small farmers of the Parish’.33 Llantrisant’s vestry, described by one writer as ‘corrupt and inefficient’, was not untypical of others in the region. Having to run the workhouse was a ‘thorn in the flesh of the vestry’ – the Overseers at one point looking after the place on a monthly rota system.34

The Royal Commission noted that many parishes in Monmouthshire had no workhouse or poorhouse, while most of those in Herefordshire and Shropshire did possess them. However, many Herefordshire parishes with workhouses had recently discontinued their use, believing they could maintain their poor more cheaply without them. In the north of Shropshire, the practice of parishes maintaining their poor in a common House of Industry was widespread. It was also observed that farming the poor was common in the region. In Monmouthshire, the common practice was for the contractor to be paid a gross annual sum, while in Shropshire and Herefordshire it was more usual for him to receive a weekly payment for each of the inmates in the house, with their daily diet being prescribed. In the former case, the contractor benefited from admitting as few paupers as possible, while in the latter it was in his interest to admit as many as possible.35

The Commission particularly criticised the use of allowance systems, said to be particularly prevalent in towns in the south of England, and also documented numerous examples of inefficiency or corruption in the local administration of poor relief. Eradicating this state of affairs was the main thrust of their report’s proposals.

THE 1834 POOR LAW AMENDMENT ACT

The Royal Commission’s recommendations were implemented in the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.36 The Act, which formed the basis of what became known as the New Poor Law, aimed to create a national, uniform and compulsory system of poor relief administration under a new central authority, the Poor Law Commissioners (PLC). New groupings of parishes areas known as Poor Law Unions were created, each managed by a board of guardians elected by local ratepayers. Funding of the new system continued to be from local poor rates. Each union was expected to provide a workhouse, which was to be the only form of relief available to able-bodied men and their families, although out-relief would still be available in certain situations.

Although the 1834 Act had an enormous impact, it did not actually overturn existing principles of poor relief – the financial responsibility of the parish, the use of a workhouse test, the administrative grouping of parishes, local management by ratepayer-elected bodies, settlement qualifications, and plural voting had all featured in Old Poor Law legislation. What the 1834 Act did change was the administrative structure through which poor relief was dispensed. Details of exactly how the new system would operate were left for the PLC to devise.

One of the three Commissioners, George Nicholls, later noted two significant deficiencies in the Act. First, it allowed Local Act Incorporations and Gilbert Unions to continue operating if they wished to do so. The latter continued to hinder the formation of new Poor Law Unions in some areas until all remaining Gilbert Unions were abolished in 1869. Second, the PLC could not compel a union to provide a workhouse without the support of a majority of its ratepayers or its board of guardians, although the alteration or enlargement of existing workhouse premises could be demanded.37

THE FORMATION OF UNIONS

The creation of Poor Law Unions was supervised by Assistant Poor Law Commissioners in consultation with local parish officials and landowners in each area. Unions could vary widely in size and population, but typically comprised one or two dozen parishes, centred on the main town in the area. However, local geography and, often more importantly, local politics could play a large part in the number and make-up of the unions in each area.

The Assistant Commissioner responsible for Breconshire, Cardiganshire, Herefordshire and Radnorshire was Edmund Walker Head, who proposed placing the parishes of Radnorshire in unions based on the market towns of Builth, Hay, Kington, Knighton, Presteigne and Rhayader, all of which straddled the county’s borders. Presteigne, whose member parishes had a total population of only 3,441, was the smallest by far of any union in Wales and barely viable. However, it lay between its more prosperous neighbours of Kington and Knighton, with whom it had considerable rivalry, and its formation was largely due to Presteigne’s jealously guarded status as Radnorshire’s county town.

In unions spanning the England-Wales border, Head’s strategy was to include a majority of English parishes so as to counteract any rebellious tendencies among the Welsh members. He also believed that the Welsh guardians, mostly small tenant farmers, would have their character raised through contact with their English counterparts, who were more likely to be substantial yeoman farmers.38

RESISTANCE TO THE NEW POOR LAW

Apart from a few short-lived protests in Kent and Sussex, the introduction of the 1834 Act in the south of England was relatively trouble-free – unions were formed, guardians elected, and workhouses put into operation. However, the subsequent implementation of the Act in other parts of the country, notably in the manufacturing areas of the north of England and in rural central and north-west Wales, met with considerable resistance.

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Poor Law Union areas in the 1880s. (By kind permission of GB Historical GIS Project)

At its mildest, this could be a letter of protest such as that from the vestry of the Merionethshire parish of Maentwrog to the Home Secretary, Lord Russell,